This arts-based autoethnography pioneers a methodology integrating Chinese calligraphic expression and interpretive visual analysis to elucidate a Chinese-American immigrant scholar’s identity negotiations within the settler colonial terrain the author inhabits. The core innovation demonstrates how diasporic artistic practices can reveal complex cross-cultural positionality and obligations toward Indigenous land and custodianship obscured in prevailing scholarly discourses. Integrating Indigenous and Asian diasporic perspectives, this autoethnography responds to scholarly calls for further insight into Asian Americans’ encounters with settler colonialism(Lowe, 2015; Tuck & Yang, 2012).
The theoretical framework interweaves Indigenous land-based paradigms (Wildcat et al., 2014), Asian Critical Theory (Iftikar & Museus, 2018), and arts-based methodologies (Barone & Eisner, 2011; Mulvihill & Swaminathan, 2022). Two original Chinese calligraphic artworks created over three years capture critical moments in the researcher’s identity negotiations and meaning-making journey. Interpretive analysis of linguistic, symbolic, and aesthetic elements reveals how themes of identity entangle with land and obligations to both land and water, suggesting ecological connectivity functions as a nexus for healing potential. This empirical autoethnography combining visual art and autoethnography provides rare insight into an Asian American immigrant educator’s navigation of settler terrain (Yoon-Remirez & Rameriz, 2021). Findings respond to under-examined issues in the literature regarding complex cross-cultural positionalities, indigeneity, and identity-specific creative practices. Ultimately, through recursive artistic interpretation and self-interrogation, the research signifies one educator’s testament to ongoing dialogue with the land’s histories and custodians—underscoring a journey of ethical self-positioning and healing.

Authors:
Peng Nelson, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, United States
Betsy Maloney Leaf, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Peng teaches at Minnesota Grown Your Own multiple pathways to support teacher candidates.

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